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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23523427">Trust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingleedo/pseuds/kingleedo'>kingleedo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ONEUS (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Short, Trust Issues, angsty but soft, mature for language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:35:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23523427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingleedo/pseuds/kingleedo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gunhak has been acting weird, angry. Dongju is determined to find out why.</p>
<p>// short</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Geonhak | Leedo/Son Dongju | Xion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>ssaid is actually so hard to write but I wanted to post something. thanks for reading :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gunhak was acting different.</p>
<p>It was faint at first, where Dongju dismissed it as bad food, but bad food didn’t last a month and didn’t make you suddenly start apologizing for every little thing.</p>
<p>“Sorry!” Gunhak would say in such a quirky way anyone would be hard pressed to say it was his usual awkwardness. “Sorry,” he’d say after he’d mess up some choreography for the second, or worse, first time, and it started dwindling from awkward and crashing into nervous, but no one expected him to get it right the first time, yet here he was. What was going on with him?</p>
<p>Gunhak was one of Dongju’s main focal points. There was work and there were friends and then there was Gunhak. And anytime Gunhak was acting strange, Dongju picked up on it immediately.</p>
<p>And he couldn’t get it out of his head.</p>
<p>Gunhak was hurting. But why? And why hadn’t he gone to Dongju about it?</p>
<p>Did he not see that Dongju hurt right there with him?</p>
<p>Dongju started getting frustrated when Gunhak started avoiding everyone. Even when the six boys were lined up, it felt like Gunhak was a foot away from the rest.</p>
<p>Dongju retaliated of course. In his own way.</p>
<p>Attack the hyung. Demand attention from him. </p>
<p>He tried a few times, their normal routine of Dongju being a brat and Gunhak smiling happily as he took the younger’s abuse, but this time, Gunhak just shoved him off, giving a haphazard look.</p>
<p>“<i>Hyung,</i>” Dongju begged on the third day of trying, and Gunhak’s hand ended up partially inside Dongju’s mouth, as the usual biting session would soon take place, but Gunhak ripped his hand away.</p>
<p>“Dongju, quit!” he said, shaking his hand. He soon left the room, leaving Dongju hurt and confused.</p>
<p>That was the first display of anger. He hadn’t done that yet.</p>
<p>And over the next month, the anger started sweeping out more and more, little by little, until one day in practice Gunhak couldn’t take it.</p>
<p>“Dammit!” he yelled with his hands trenched in his hair and nails digging into his skull.</p>
<p>Everyone stopped, eyes wide on him. Gunhak stared back only a moment, too angry to keep the contact, or perhaps too ashamed to do so.</p>
<p>“Should we take a break?” Hwanwoong said.</p>
<p>Everyone agreed silently, shuffling to the edges of the room. Gunhak left, breathing harshly, and Dongju watched him, watched him shove the door open and take his struggles somewhere else, and hated how he took them. He wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do. Not right now.</p>
<p>But Gunhak only got worse, and they’d all silently decided to spend some off time together, where they wouldn’t have to talk, where no one would feel pressured to do anything they didn’t want to do. They watched a movie. Sometime through, Gunhak went to his room, saying a quick, “Night guys,” before disappearing.</p>
<p>Dongju fiddled with his phone for a few minutes, tried to focus on the movie, but after a few scenes, he realized he couldn’t stay like this. He had to do something. It was becoming too much.</p>
<p>“I’ll be back,” he said. “Sorry.”</p>
<p>And he slipped into Gunhak’s room. Gunhak’s face was still slightly damp from his skin routine, and it had the fresh dewy glow typical of postwash. The lamp was on, a dull yellow pervading the air.</p>
<p>Dongju leaned back on the door, tucking his hands behind him, and he lacked courage when he spoke.</p>
<p>“Have… have you been getting enough sleep recently?” A dumb question, but he didn’t know where to start.</p>
<p>Dongju cared. He cared to an unbearable extent, cared so much that the fear of hurting Gunhak more than he already was kept him awkward and shy.</p>
<p>Awkward and shy, around his best friend. Around his hyung, around the most important person in his life, Kim Gunhak. How silly.</p>
<p>“Yes, I’ve been getting enough sleep, Dongju,” Gunhak said pointedly. He sat at the edge of his bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and looked up to Dongju, expectant in an impatient way. He said, “Well?” with his eyes.</p>
<p>“I would hope,” Dongju said softly, creeping further into the dim room. “With you going to sleep so early all the time. Maybe you need less.”</p>
<p>“Dongju don't start.” But Dongju wasn’t trying to be rude.</p>
<p>The younger took a deep breath. He traipsed to the bed across the room, and why he didn’t just sit by Gunhak, he didn’t know. He looked ahead, into Gunhak’s eyes, where a capsule of fatigue sat locked up, hidden by stern posture. His breathing was strong, and for a man who was supposedly tired, it was a bit too quick. Annoyance. Dongju wished he could breathe life into him. Inside, he was kindling to understand Gunhak’s mental war, and he kept his eyes trained on his friend’s.</p>
<p>“What do you want?”</p>
<p>Gunhak gave Dongju his firm attention. His eyes were intense, and Dongju felt caged by his gaze. It was like the only thing that kept them apart was the ocean of the floor, but even as wide and far as it stretched, he and Gunhak saw each other. Eyes were the door to a soul, and if Gunhak’s heart was guarded, Dongju would find his soul no matter what.</p>
<p>What did he want? Not ‘What’s up?’ Not a questioning as to why he sat on the other side of the room. Did Gunhak even notice something was wrong?</p>
<p>“I wanted to come talk to you.”</p>
<p>“Really?” He wasn’t having it. “Right now?”</p>
<p>“We haven’t talked in a while.”</p>
<p>Dongju sat with his hands tucked into his lap. He felt small.</p>
<p>“And so now’s the time?” Gunhak was getting more heated. But it was different, not pure rage. Why did Dongju suddenly feel even sadder? “I’m not stupid, Dongju. What do you want?”</p>
<p>Gunhak swallowed hard. His sharp breaths filled the silence. </p>
<p>“I didn’t say you were stupid.”</p>
<p>“Oh my god. Everyone says stuff like that.” Gunhak was taking offense, something Dongju couldn’t grasp what about.</p>
<p>“Yeah but you’ve been saying stuff like that a lot more than normal.” Dongju sounded rushed; he was getting impatient but didn’t want to show it. “And why do you think I want something so bad?”</p>
<p>“Do you not?”</p>
<p>“I do but—“</p>
<p>Gunhak raised his eyebrows.</p>
<p>“But it’s not like that,” Dongju finished. “You make it sound like I’m trying to take from you.”</p>
<p>“Well you’re taking my fucking time, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“Hyung!”</p>
<p>“Don’t look at me like that!”</p>
<p>“What the—” Dongjustopped short, breathing harshly. He took a deep breath. “Like what?” he said.</p>
<p>“Like that!”</p>
<p>Dongju was trying to calm down, but it didn’t seem that way with Gunhak. There was something under causing him pain, like a needle in his lungs that he didn’t know about. Anyone would be annoyed with something constantly pricking their side like that.</p>
<p>“Alright, okay. I really don’t know what I did—“</p>
<p>“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo.”</p>
<p>“Hyung, wait. Please. Just…”</p>
<p>“Just?”</p>
<p>“Just let me explain. Alright I don’t know what to do here, and I obviously offended you somehow—“</p>
<p>“Don’t act like you know how I feel.”</p>
<p>Dongju stopped.</p>
<p>“Well what about how I feel?”</p>
<p>“What about it?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean <i>what about it?</i> We’re supposed to be there for each other, and I feel like no matter what I say, I’m just gonna somehow push you away more than you already are.”</p>
<p>A silence stretched on after that, and the tiredness in Gunhak seemed more pronounced. He spoke nonchalantly, but even so, it came off harsh.</p>
<p>“This must really suck for you.”</p>
<p>It did. But obviously that wasn’t the right way to get him to open up.</p>
<p>“What can I talk about, hyung? If not your feelings, if not mine, then what?”</p>
<p>Another silence.</p>
<p>“Exactly,” Gunhak finally said.</p>
<p>He’d calmed down, but for the worse. He looked gravely disinterested, and a shadow hung over his apathetic eyes. Inside Dongju was a jittery mess. He was nervous and worried and this was not something that was supposed to happen in front of his best friend.</p>
<p>“I’m not taking that. Please tell me what’s wrong.”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Gunhak said.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“Why won’t you just talk to me?”</p>
<p>“I don’t have to.”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you <i>want</i> to?”</p>
<p>Gunhak stayed quiet, but the burning tension coming from him spoke more than enough. The internal war raged on within. He refused to speak.</p>
<p>“Whatever,” Dongju started. “Whatever if you don’t want to but you’re my best friend, hyung. And I honestly…” He felt tears prickling from under. “I want to share the burden. I don’t want to hurt you... I’m not your enemy.”</p>
<p>A glassy sheen started over his irises, and the tension in him only grew more. He swallowed.</p>
<p>“Promise?” Gunhak said and his voice trembled.</p>
<p>The sound of his vulnerable voice started the tears down Dongju’s cheeks. The frustration of seeing Gunhak like that tore him up inside, and he nodded faintly. He promised.</p>
<p>Suddenly Gunhak broke out in tears. He buried his head down, into his hands, and he choked back his sobs, refusing to let them all the way through.</p>
<p>“Hyung,” Dongju whispered, getting up. He was out of it, unsure of what to do.</p>
<p>He wrapped his arms around his hyung, standing over him, and his fingers found the strands of hair and the soft skin underneath. He lifted Gunhak’s head from his hands and forced him closer, and Gunhak buried his cries in Dongju’s chest.</p>
<p>Dongju cried softly, tremoring ever so slightly. His touch was light as he caressed Gunhak’s back, and the faint contact met everything to him. All he wanted was his feelings to get across to Gunhak. To show that he cared.</p>
<p>“It’s me,” Gunhak whispered, voice breaking. “It’s me who’s wrong. Nothing else.”</p>
<p>Dongju let out a quiet yet fierce cry.</p>
<p>“Hyung,” he cried.</p>
<p>And suddenly he crawled onto Gunhak’s lap, forcing his way closer to him. He wrapped himself around him and dug his face into the crook of his collar bone. Gunhak was holding Dongju now, and his arms were firm and strong around the younger’s dainty frame.</p>
<p>They cried together for a moment longer, until from outside the boys started getting rowdy. The movie must’ve been over. Dongju pulled away, tears licked down his cheeks, and he took hold of Gunhak’s gaze once more. It was pained and torn. Dongju took him in, all of him, his ache and agony and more.</p>
<p>If only Gunhak realized how Dongju saw him. Wrong? Gunhak? Gunhak was the only thing in this world that was right. All the strife, all the struggles, all the bad and the disgusting, none of it mattered because of Gunhak. He was the only antidote in a world of poison.</p>
<p>If only he knew. But right now wasn’t the time to confess. Right now, and for however long it took, Dongju had to put Gunhak first.</p>
<p>They watched each other, and Gunhak seemed small, eyes slick with sadness. Dongju placed his hands around Gunhak’s head, fingers caressing the hair at the base of his skull. They sat like that a moment, slow and tired breathing in sync, and Dongju wanted to tell Gunhak how beautiful he looked, how beautiful he always looked. How his eyes held the deepest intricacies of the world. How they’d calmed him so many times before, made him feel secure in this world of insecurity.</p>
<p>And this pain that Gunhak was feeling, <i>that</i> was what was wrong. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, for someone like Gunhak to feel something like this.</p>
<p>What did Dongju want, Gunhak?</p>
<p>He wanted you to be happy.</p>
<p>Finally, Dongju spoke.</p>
<p>“Goodnight,” he said, and he lifted from Gunhak to leave.</p>
<p>Gunhak didn’t move. He didn’t talk. And Dongju left the room, yearning for something more. The other four found him in his own thoughts, and they asked what was up.</p>
<p>“Hm? Oh. Nothing.”</p>
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